Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

The Policy of Appeasement

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The Policy of Appeasement

The Taliban’s spring campaign of bloodshed has started with merciless massacre of civilians. There have been suicide bombings, roadside blasts and attacks almost daily since last week with the mass door-to-door killing of civilians in Farah, suicide bombing in Zabul or using children as shield in Kunar.

More than fifty people were killed in the Farah attack on Wednesday with over a hundred injured, many critically. In a coordinated attack, 9 bombers targeted the provincial courtroom where some Taliban prisoners were to be presented for trial. They failed to free the Taliban prisoners, but every civilian including all the judges in the court building were gruesomely massacred in a room-to-room search. The victims also included six Afghan National Army troops and four policemen. The bombers had come in ANA uniforms and vehicle.

It was a day after President Karzai had said Mullah Omar could take part in elections giving Afghans the chance to vote for or against him. Claiming responsibility, the Taliban have shown they only believe in one path to power: terror.

In the Kunar incident, officials claim 10 children have been killed in a NATO airstrike on a house where sheltered Taliban were engaged in fire with Afghan Special Forces. Those children were trapped, and reportedly used as ‘shield’. The Palace statement says "President Karzai has condemned using children as shields in the battlefield by the Taliban and says that NATO shouldn't target residential areas that would cost the killing of civilians." A US civilian adviser is also killed.

As usual, the Farah bloodbath did not provoke outrage of our religious and political leadership. The Ulema Council which is quick to release statements about state foreign relations and legislation issues in parliament, kept mum on Taliban’s terror, as they have been throughout the last decade.  The hypocrisy of our religious and political leadership is shameless. Their outrage is selective: only for civilian casualties by NATO, but a silent or soft policy about Taliban atrocities.

In a radio speech after the attack, President Karzai expressed concern about the Taliban prisoner release process from Bagram jail. He said, “We went another step towards preserving national sovereignty and providing peace in the country, the responsibilities of Bagram Prison were handed over to the government of Afghanistan and many of the innocent Taliban or those who were imprisoned under the name of the Taliban were released. For this humanitarian act, the Taliban attacked Farah so that people would become pessimistic about the release of those prisoners.”

It had caused anger of many ordinary Afghans on internet. The official Facebook and Twitter pages of Arg were under attack with anger and call for the President to show serious leadership and abandon the apologetic Taliban appeasement.

The UN Security Council strongly condemned the merciless attack on civilians, calling for perpetrators, organizers and financiers to be brought to justice.   UNSC on Thursday expressed its “serious concern at the threats posed by the Taliban, Al-Qaida and illegal armed groups to the local population, national security forces, international military and international assistance efforts in Afghanistan.''

Taliban’s atrocities of civilian butchering and use of children as shield in battle merit to be declared war crimes at international forums of justice and accountability. It seems the Karzai Administration will continue appeasing Taliban with the joke of peace and reconciliation no matter how much blood of Afghans they shed.  If the Government launches a strong anti-Taliban public language campaign and military operations, there would be huge public support. Lack of a coherent counterinsurgency and anti-terrorism policy has made the Taliban so confident that they consider the Karzai Administration a nothing, and refuses to hold any talks with Kabul, while continuing bloodbath and terror across the country.

In areas where people are pushed to the wall by the Taliban atrocities and Government’s incapacity, there are indigenous armed uprisings by villagers in many districts of the volatile provinces. It also shows peoples’ frustration and disappointment with state to protect them. Karzai’s appeasement policy has totally failed to make any progress with talks. It has decreased peoples’ confidence in state security institutions, thus the popular armed uprisings in Andar, Panjwai and other districts where people are fed up of Taliban bullying and ready to take up arms for their protection when Government fails.

The continued policy of appeasement without any positive result, it has also left the urban population in uncertainty with prevailing environment of fear for future.
The hypocrisy of our religious and political leadership aside, outrage among ordinary people is at edge. They know that the Taliban do not understand the language of street protests to abandon terror.  If the outrage explodes, it will be armed uprising and our eventual chaos.

An episode about it was at play in parliament where MPs did not condemn the Taliban for Farah attack, but the Karzai Administration. MP Osmani from Farah declared the government traitor for failure to save peoples’ lives, asking for an “uprising” against the Government.  

Abbas Daiyar is a staff writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at Abbas.daiyar@gmail.com He tweets at @AbasDaiyar

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